jealous of my Father's affection, I could not be fo dubious of his provifion for me. Ah! I fhould rather wonder that I have fo much, than repine that I have no more. I fhould rather have been troubled that I have done no more for God, than that I have received no more from God. I have not proclaimed it to the world by my conversation, that I have found a fufficiency in him alone, as the faints have done, Hab. iii. 17, 18. How have I debafed the faithfulness and all-fufficiency of God, and magnified thefe earthly trifles, by my anxiety about them? Had I had more faith, a light purfe would not have made fuch an heavy heart. Lord, how often haft thou convinced me of this folly, and put me to the blush, when thou haft confuted my unbelief! fo that I have refolved never to distrust thee more, and yet new exigencies renew this corruption. How contradictory alfo hath my heart and my prayers been? I pray for them conditionally, and with fubmiffion to thy will; I dare not fay to thee, I must have them; yet this hath been the language of my heart and life. O convince me of this folly!

V

THE POEM.

ARIETY of curious fifh are caught

Out of the fea, and to our tables brought;
We pick the choiceft bits, and then we fay,
We are fufficed; come, now take away.
The table's voided, you have done; but fain
I would perfuade to have it brought again.
The fweeteft bit of all remains behind,

Which, through your want of skill, you could not find.
A bit for faith, have you not found it? Then
I've made but half a meal; come, tafte again,
Haft thou confider'd, O my foul! that hand
Which feeds thofe multitudes in fea and land!
A double mercy in it thou fhouldft fee;

It fed them firft, and then with them fed thee.
Food in the waters we should think were scant
For fuch a multitude, yet none do want.
What num'rous flocks of birds about me fly?
When faw I'one, through want, fall down, and die?
They gather what his hand to them doth bring,
Tho' but a worm, and at that feast can fing.
How full a table doth my Father keep?

Bluth then my naughty heart, repent, and weep;
How faithlefs and diftruftful haft thou been,
Altho' his care and love thou oft haft feen?
Thus in a fingle difh you have a feast,
Your first and fecond courfe, the laft the beft.

ΤΗ

HE waters of the fea, in themselves, are brackish and unpleasant, yet being exhaled by the fun, and condensed into clouds, they fall down into pleafant fhowers; or if drained through the earth, their property is thereby altered, and that which was fo falt in the fea, becomes exceeding sweet and pleasant in the springs. This we find by conftant experience, the sweetest crystal spring came from the fea, Ecclef. i. 7.

APPLICATION.

Afflictions in themselves are evil, Amos ii. 6. very bitter and unpleafant. See Heb. xii. 11. Yet not morally and intrinfically evil, as fin is; for if so, the holy God would never own it for his own act as he doth, Mic. iii. 2. but always disclaimeth fin, Jam. i. 3. Befides, if it were fo evil, it could, in no cafe or refpect, be the object of our election and defire, as in fome cafes it ought to be, Heb. xi. 25. but it is evil, as it is the fruit of fin, and grievous unto fenfe, Heb. xii. 11. But though it be thus brackish and unpleasant in itfelf, yet, paffing through Chrift and the covenant, it lofes that ungrateful property, and becomes pleafant in the fruits and effects thereof unto believers.

Yea, fuch are the bleffed fruits thereof, that they are to account it all joy when they fall into divers afflictions, Jam. i. 2. David could blefs God that he was afflicted, and many a faint hath done the like. A good woman once compared her afflictions to her children: For, • (faith she) they put me in pain in bearing them; yet as I know not which child, fo neither which affliction I could be without.' Sometimes the Lord fanctifies afflictions to discover the corruption that is in the heart, Deut. viii. 2. it is a furnace to fhew the drofs. Ah! when a fharp affliction comes, then the pride, impatience, and unbelief of the heart appear: Matura vexatio prodit feipfam. When the water is ftirred, then the mud and filthy fediment that lay at the bottom rife. Little, faith the afflicted foul, did I think there had been in me that pride, felf-love, diftruft of God, carnal fear, and unbelief, as I now find. O where is my patience, my faith, my glory in tribulation? I could not have imagined the fight of death would have fo appalled me, the lofs of outward things have fo pierced me. Now what a bleffed thing is this to have the heart thus difcovered.

Again, fanctified afflictions difcover the emptinefs and vanity of the creature. Now, the Lord hath ftained its pride, and veiled its tempting fplendor, by this or that affliction; and the foul fees what an empty, fhallow, deceitful thing it is. The world (as one bath VOL. V. KL

truly obferved) is then only great in our eyes, when we are full of fenfe and felf: but now affliction makes us more fpiritual, and then it is nothing. It drives them nearer to God, makes them fee the neceffity of the life of faith, with multitudes of other benefits.

But yet these sweet fruits of afflictions do not naturally, and of their own accord, spring from it; no, we may as well look for grapes from thorns, or figs from thiftles, as for fuch fruits from affliction, till Chrift's fanctifying hand and art have paffed upon them.

The reafon why they become thus fweet and pleasant (as I noted before) is, because they run now in another channel; Jefus Chrift hath removed them from mount Ebal to Gerizim; they are no more the effects of vindictive wrath, but paternal chaftifement. And, as * Mr Cafe well notes, a teaching affliction is to the faints, the re• fult of all the offices of Jefus Chrift. As a king, he chaftens; as a prophet, he teacheth, viz. by chaftening; and, as a priest, he hath purchased this grace of the Father, that the dry rod might bloffom, and bear fruit.' Behold, then, a fanctified affliction is a cup, whereinto Jefus hath wrung and prefied the juice and virtue of all his mediatorial offices. Surely, that must be a cup of generous, royal wine, like that in the fupper, a cup of blefling to the people of God.

REFLECTION.

Hence may the unfanctified foul draw matter of fear and trouble, even from its unfanctified troubles. And thus it may reflect upon itfelf: O my foul! what good haft thou gotten by all, or any of thy afflictions? God's rod hath been dumb to thee, or thou deaf to it. I have not learned one holy inftruction from it; my troubles have left me the fame, or worse than they found me; my heart was proud, earthly, and vain before, and fo it remains ftill; they have not purged out, but only given vent to the pride, murmur, and atheism of my heart. I have been in my afflictions, as that wicked Ahaz was in his, 2 Chron. xxviii. 22. who, "in the midst of his diftress, "yet trefpaffed more and more against the Lord." When I have been in ftorms at fea, or troubles at home, my foul within me hath been as a raging fea, cafting up mire and dirt. Surely this rod is not the rod of God's children; I have proved but drofs in the furnace, and I fear the Lord will put me away as drofs, as he threatens to do to the wicked, Pfal. cxix. 119.

Hence alfo fhould gracious fouls draw much encouragement and comfort amidst all their troubles. O thefe are the fruits of God's fatherly love to me! why fhould I fear in the day of evil! or tremble any more at affliction? Though they feem as a ferpent at a distance, yet are they a rod in the hand. O bleffed be that skilful and gracious hand, that makes the rod, the dry rod to bloffom, and bear fuch precious fruit.

Correction, Inftruction, p. 82.

Lord, what a mystery of love lies in this difpenfation! that fin, which first brought afflictions into the world, is now itself carried out of the world by affliction, Rom. v. 12. Ifa. vii. 9. O what can fruftrate my falvation, when thofe very things that feem moft to oppose it, are made fubfervient to it, and, contrary to their own nature, do promote and further it?

T

THE POEM.

IS ftrange to hear what different cenfures fall
Upon the fame affliction; fome do call
Their troubles fweet, fome bitter; others meet
Them both mid-way, and call them bitter fweet.
But here's the queftion ftill, I fain would fee,
Why fweet to him, and bitter unto me?
Thou drink'ft them, dregs and all, but others find
Their troubles fweet, becaufe to them refin'd
And fanctify'd; which difference is beft,
By fuch apt fimilies as thefe expreft:

From falt and brackifh feas fumes rife and fly,
Which, into clouds condens'd, obfcure the sky;
Their property there alter'd, in few hours,

Thofe brackish fumes fall down in pleafant fhow'rs:
Or as the dregs of wine and beer, diftill'd
By limbec, with ingredients, doth yield
A cordial water, tho' the lees were bitter,
From whence the chymift did extract fuch liquor.
Then marvel not, that one can kiss that rod,
Which makes another to blafpheme his God.
O get your troubles fweeten'd and refin'd,
Or elfe they'll leave bitter effects behind.
Saints troubles are a cord, let down my love,
To pully up their hearts to things above.

CHAP. XV.

The feas within their bounds the Lord contains :
He alfo men and devils holds in chains.

OBSERVATION.

T is a wonderful work of God to limit and bound fuch a vaft and

IT

furious creature as the fea, which, according to the judgment of many learned men, is higher than the earth; and that it hath a propenfion to overflow it, is evident both from its nature and motion: were it not that the great God had laid his law upon it. And this is a work wherein the Lord glories, and will be admired. Pfal. “Thou hast set a bound that they may not pass over, that they turn not again to cover the earth." Which it is clear they would do, were they not thus limited. So Job xxxviij. 8, 10, 11.

civ. 9.

"Who fhut up the fea with doors, when it brake forth as if it had "iffued out of the womb? I brake up for it my decreed place, and "fet bars and doors, and faid, Hitherto fhalt thou come, but no "further; and here fhall thy proud waves be stayed."

APPLICATION.

And no lefs is the glorious power and mercy of God difcovered in bridling the rage and fury of Satan and his inftruments, that they break not in upon the inheritance of the Lord, and destroy it. "Surely the wrath of man fhall praise thee, and the remainder of "wrath thou fhalt restrain," Pfal. lxxvi. 10. By which it is more than hinted, that there is a world of rage and malice in the hearts of wicked men, which fain would, but cannot vent itself, because the Lord restrains, or, as in the Hebrew, girds it up. Satan is the envious one, and his rage is great against the people of God, Rev. xii. 12. But God holds him, and all his inftruments in a chain of providence; and it is well for God's people that it is fo.

They are limited as the fea, and fo the Lord in a providential way fpeaks to them, "Hitherto fhall ye come, and no further." Sometimes he ties them up fo fhort, that they cannot touch his people, though they have the greatest opportunities and advantages. Pfal. cv. 12, 13, 14, 15. " When they were but a few men in number; 86 yea, very few, and strangers in it; when they went from one na❝tion to another, from one kingdom to another people, he fuffered "no man to do them wrong; yea, he reproved kings for their "fakes, faying, touch not mine anointed, and do my prophets no "harm." And fometimes he permits them to touch and trouble his people, but then fets bounds and limits to them, beyond which they must not pass. That is a pregnant text to this purpose, Rev. ii. 10. "Behold the devil fhall caft fome of you into prifon, that ye may be "tried, and ye shall have tribulation ten days."

Here are four remarkable limitations upon Satan and his agents in reference to the people of God: a limitation as to the perfons, not all, but fome; a limitation of the punishment, a prifon, not a grave, not hell; a limitation upon them as to the end, for trial, not ruin; and laftly, as to the duration, not as long as they please, but ten days.

REFLECTION.

O my foul! what marrow and fatnefs, comfort and confolation mayeft thou fuck from the breaft of this truth in the darkest day of trouble? Thou feeft how the flowing feas drives to overwhelm the earth. Who has arrefted it in its courfe, and stopt its violence? who has confined it to its place? Certainly none other but the Lord. When I fee it threaten the fhore with its proud, furious, and infulting waves, I wonder it doth not swallow up all: but I fee it no fooner touch the fands, which God hath made its bounds, but it retires, and, as it were, with a kind of fubmiffion, refpects thofe limits which God hath fet it.